Tech Talk | Phones, Computers & Empty Wallets

General discussion on all things tech-related. News, advice, whatever we see fit.

I just got an S7 Edge.

I don't feel guilty yet. I upgraded from a LG G3 and I have no regrets. Feels super solid, great speed at everything, manual controls for photo, etc. There's this guy that made a video with the S7 edge that really highlights how far we've come with small sensor technology.

Personal opinion obviously, I just love holding that thing, the size, the sides and the materials are perfect. Feels like such great engineering. And I'm actually very happy about the option to get my favorite numbers on speed-dial on the side, it works out great.

rossonero, might be too early for me to answer you properly, but some impressions relating to your questions:- my G3 became very buggy, kept restarting, and it was much slower than my mind wanted it to be.- the screen is super bright, really enjoyable.- the white balance by default is kinda fucked, slightly yellow, but nothing anyone will notice to be honest, unless they're photo nerds. It's already made better if you switch to cinema mode in display options. I wish we could calibrate it more.- UI wise, everything feels super fast. So does the camera, the way it focuses in an instant in video is fascinating.

By giririsssGo To PostThe edge holds no appeal. But i'll be getting an S7 soon enough. A really good revision to a good design. Seems solid in every direction.

Touchwiz is still the default Samsung UI. It's ok, I have no issues with it. But a lot of others do. But you can always replace the UI's on android phones.

The UI is really smooth now, no real stuttering at all.

Look up some review / previes on sites like GSM Arena. Just about everyone likes it. Video review by the Verge. There are plenty of other reviews going around too.

The edge has a bigger screen and a bigger battery than the usual SG7 though. My LG G3 is 5.5" and I can't go back to smaller.

Yeah, I've been reading the reviews and the consensus seems to be that it's if not the best then at least one of the best phones available today. But I want a phone that is a lot better than the LG G3 and it does seem like the SG7E may be worth the upgrade.

By vireGo To PostLooking to get a 4K TV in the near future. Any super promising ones for 2016?

Haven't really followed that stuff at all.

When I helped my brother get a new TV, we settled on the Samsung JU7005 (I think it's 7100 in the US) and it's really great. It's however a 2015 model, but the new 2016 models are supposed to have some Ultra HD certification and look like they'll be very good. So my advice is to check the Samsungs.

By GabyskraGo To PostPersonal opinion obviously, I just love holding that thing, the size, the sides and the materials are perfect. Feels like such great engineering. And I'm actually very happy about the option to get my favorite numbers on speed-dial on the side, it works out great.

rossonero, might be too early for me to answer you properly, but some impressions relating to your questions:- my G3 became very buggy, kept restarting, and it was much slower than my mind wanted it to be.- the screen is super bright, really enjoyable.- the white balance by default is kinda fucked, slightly yellow, but nothing anyone will notice to be honest, unless they're photo nerds. It's already made better if you switch to cinema mode in display options. I wish we could calibrate it more.- UI wise, everything feels super fast. So does the camera, the way it focuses in an instant in video is fascinating.

I bought and tried the Gear VR. HOLY SHIT! That thing is amazing. Can't believe the tech is here now, and that it was only a 100 dollars add-on to my phone. I strongly recommend it, I now know I will not trade it back in for sure for any other later phone. Just too much fun.

By EldritchTrapStarGo To PostHow is the battery life? I have an S6 Edge and the battery life is pretty bad.

I've had the phone for a day, i've played with it a lot, used it in the VR headset, etc, but the battery holds up. It absolutely will last 18 hours of a power-user. 2 days of normal use is plausible but it's all relative.

After over two years, four different phones, two broken power buttons, I will soon be retiring my Nexus 5. Yesterday, I decided to pull the trigger on that $200 Nexus 5X deal. I realize it's mostly a lateral move, except for important things like the good camera and fingerprint scanner, but I'll be on that new phone high for at least a little bit.

I've had the S7 from TMO for about ten days now and I'm pretty happy with it. I've had Xperia phones for the last three years and this just feels like the next step for Android.

TMO gave the VR headset with six games and a year of Netflix away for free, so I'm looking forward to checking that out in a few weeks. Sounds like people are happy with the experience. You have to complete a form on their site and wait for them to ship which sucks.

Good:

- Excellent screen. That AMOLED is no fucking joke. Shit is popping off this thing. Major upgrade over my Sony joints.

- That 820 processor is lighting quick with everything I've thrown at it thus far. I'm in and out of apps and the web browser without any issues and its just taking it all in stride. I can certainly feel the difference and I don't think it's that fresh out of the box speed that you typically get with a new phone. This thing is legit powerful.

- The camera is lovely in both low and natural light settings. That's a huge upgrade for me because my previous phone really started to slowdown there near the end when trying to open up the camera. This is lighting fast by double tapping the home button and again the screen makes images look great.

- Incredibly fast charging time. There's a quick charge option and it's no bullshit. I was under 50% yesterday, and within twenty minutes while I was trying clothes on at Banana, the thing was fully charged by the time I was walking up to the register. I really like that!

Cons:

- Now having said that, I'm not entirely blown away with the battery life. If I have Whatsapp and Chrome running I'm losing nearly 1% every 5 mins that the screen is on. That doesn't seem normal to me. Or maybe it is and I'm just expecting better.

- Predictable bloatware is there. I don't know what half this Samsung shit is, but I don't like that I can't remove it. I've been able to disable a bunch of it but it would be nice to wipe it clean off the system.

- It's a little light for my liking. Thin is one thing, but for a piece of kit with so much running under the hood, I think I would like a bit or heft to it. I'm sure I'll get used to it, though it's been a bit jarring this week feeling like I'm missing my phone that's in my pocket.

These are obviously super minor complaints. I'm very satisfied so far.

I do have a few questions that I hope someone can help with:

For notifications on the lock screen, how do I go directly into the app that is notifying me of activity? As an example, Whatsapp has a new message and is set to pop up on my lock screen. With my previous phones I could double tap these bubbles to open the apps. That's not working for me here. I can swipe left or right to get rid of the notification, but tapping or swiping does nothing. Is there a setting I'm missing somewhere?

Swiping down on the notifications bar brings up the quick settings menu where five options appear; another twelve are listed by pressing the down arrow. It seems by default you have to have five of these options selected to appear at the top (on my Xperia's I could choose specifically how many appeared to limit clutter), but I can't seem to find mobile hotspot as an option to be added. Mobile hotspot is only listed under the main settings by selecting the gear from the quick menu. Once inside settings, for some reason, there's an additional quick settings menu listed at the top. It's there I can edit and have mobile hotspot appear as an option, but it's also listed on the main settings menu. Why would I want or need it at the top if it's right there in the middle of the screen? How do I get this to appear from the pull down option setting?

Screen grabs. I'm told that pressing the home and power buttons simultaneously captures the screen. That's not working for me. I am able to use the hand swipe feature, but I think I prefer the old analog method. What am I missing here?

By rodeoclownGo To PostYeah, Motorola is good. Close to stock, generally timely updates. If I weren't into the habit of buying Nexus phones now, I'd totally consider a Moto X.

TouchWiz has gotten better, but I still don't like what Samsung does. What probably annoys me most is that OEMs are so spotty with updates.

Yeah. My biggest gripe about Samsung pones would be the sheer reliance on the OEM's to push the updates. They let the updates rot with the OEM's while they tailor them to their shitty bloat ware packages they add in. On top of the standard Samsung stuff.

I wouldn't even mind if it was just the standard Samsung stuff and they pushed out the updates. But they don't. Annoying.

By GQman2121Go To PostII do have a few questions that I hope someone can help with:

For notifications on the lock screen, how do I go directly into the app that is notifying me of activity? As an example, Whatsapp has a new message and is set to pop up on my lock screen. With my previous phones I could double tap these bubbles to open the apps. That's not working for me here. I can swipe left or right to get rid of the notification, but tapping or swiping does nothing. Is there a setting I'm missing somewhere?

Tap the notification, then unlock the screen as per normal in the unlock box. It will take you to the highlighted application.

Swiping down on the notifications bar brings up the quick settings menu where five options appear; another twelve are listed by pressing the down arrow. It seems by default you have to have five of these options selected to appear at the top (on my Xperia's I could choose specifically how many appeared to limit clutter), but I can't seem to find mobile hotspot as an option to be added. Mobile hotspot is only listed under the main settings by selecting the gear from the quick menu. Once inside settings, for some reason, there's an additional quick settings menu listed at the top. It's there I can edit and have mobile hotspot appear as an option, but it's also listed on the main settings menu. Why would I want or need it at the top if it's right there in the middle of the screen? How do I get this to appear from the pull down option setting?

When you hit the drop down, the icon next to it (in the top right) should change into a pencil / pen, click this to edit the default list of what settings are and aren't shown where. I think you can find the screen by searching for "notification panel" from the settings screen search box.

You can also edit the "recommended apps" in this section, which is the list of default apps shown when you plug in an accessory.

Screen grabs. I'm told that pressing the home and power buttons simultaneously captures the screen. That's not working for me. I am able to use the hand swipe feature, but I think I prefer the old analog method. What am I missing here?

If you press them at the same time and hold for about 3 seconds, it should take a screen shot.

By reiloGo To PostI don't understand why you guys don't install vanilla Android on your Samsung phones. What they do to the OS is criminal.

It takes entirely too much effort and then users become dependent upon developers for support. Not to mention the fact that it's literally impossible to install stock Android on non Nexus devices without offficial support. The closest any of us get to stock from OEMs is Sony's open devices program which provides stock ROMs to test out upcoming updates.

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Problems with the S7/S7 edge on my end that prevent me from buying it:Lack of IR blasterAMOLED screens suffer from burn in No USB CNo pressure sensitive screenNo manual video mode like the V10

The G5 is coming out in a few weeks with an IR blaster, 900 nits of brightness, USB C, LCD screen but lack of manual mode for video.

At this point I'm waiting on Sony to release the Z6 or Motorola to release something. Buying an Android smartphone is difficult for someone like me with small hands.

On the ios side the iphone 5se is looking like the one for me as it launches in two and half weeks.

So, the discussion is essentially phone-centric for now, but I have a question relating to CPUs. Hope someone can answer.

I've been thinking of getting a nice desktop computer in the next few months. I do a lot of photography, and my ideal setup would basically be a top-of-the-line CPU with an entry GPU (most of my desktop gaming is stuff like CS:GO, football manager, civilization). So I was thinking i7-6700k and geforce gtx 950, for a good price. My question is about the CPU: do we know about the future generations of processors? I'm willing to wait another year if it means that the next generation will be a meaningful improvement. From what I've read, the i7-6700k wasn't much of an improvement over the i7-4790k.

Probably gonna need to upgrade my Mac soon. I have a mid-2010 MacBook Pro and it's really been dragging lately.

Probably gonna go for a MacBook Air but I need to be patient and wait for the surely upcoming update to hit. Probably my biggest complaint about Apple is how they seemingly intentionally hamstring older devices with OS updates.

By GabyskraGo To PostSo, the discussion is essentially phone-centric for now, but I have a question relating to CPUs. Hope someone can answer.

I've been thinking of getting a nice desktop computer in the next few months. I do a lot of photography, and my ideal setup would basically be a top-of-the-line CPU with an entry GPU (most of my desktop gaming is stuff like CS:GO, football manager, civilization). So I was thinking i7-6700k and geforce gtx 950, for a good price. My question is about the CPU: do we know about the future generations of processors? I'm willing to wait another year if it means that the next generation will be a meaningful improvement. From what I've read, the i7-6700k wasn't much of an improvement over the i7-4790k.

The 6700K is what i'll be getting soon.

They're a good generational change, but nothing significant. And I'm not sure you're going to see any significant changes any time soon. CPU's are targeting a few things, mainly around power efficiency and heat reduction and handling multi tasking/multi cores/ multi threading much better. Raw power increases tend to be a little by the way side. in terms of raw GHz anyway.

The 6700K is a good balance though, with a clock of 4GHz and 4 cores.

I'm no super expect on CPU's though, I follow the tech very casually.

One thing to keep in mind is to make sure you get a mother board with a z170 chip with full M.2 PCIe speed. These allow you to get a M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive that will do some crazy speeds. Currently the biggest bottle neck in your PC (outside internet connection) is more than likely your Hard Drive. Tradition SATA solid state drives have a peak through put of about 500MB/s. Which is ok, but actual SSD tech can pump data through much faster. So they're moving away from it and towards Hard Drives based on a M.2 Connector, which allows the Hard Drive to have access to PCIe pipelines, which allows for a lot more data to be thrown around.

The new gen, Gen 3, of M.2 PCIe controllers allow the SSD to have access to a total of 4 PCIe pipes, which allows them to have a throughput of 4GB/s. gigaBYTE, not bit. Gen 2 only allows them access to 2 PCIe pipes so they're stuck at 2GB/s. This is a significant increase in overall performance. And these new SSD's are starting to hit the market. Samsungs new 950Pro 512gb drive is slaying everything on the bench marks.

If you get a 6700K you basically need a new mother board, so just make sure it's a z170 and they aren't cutting corners.

By GabyskraGo To PostSo, the discussion is essentially phone-centric for now, but I have a question relating to CPUs. Hope someone can answer.

I've been thinking of getting a nice desktop computer in the next few months. I do a lot of photography, and my ideal setup would basically be a top-of-the-line CPU with an entry GPU (most of my desktop gaming is stuff like CS:GO, football manager, civilization). So I was thinking i7-6700k and geforce gtx 950, for a good price. My question is about the CPU: do we know about the future generations of processors? I'm willing to wait another year if it means that the next generation will be a meaningful improvement. From what I've read, the i7-6700k wasn't much of an improvement over the i7-4790k.

If you do any kind of multimedia work, you should looking into the X99 platform (i.e. 5820k). It's not much more than a 6700k setup (in some cases may even be cheaper) and the 5820k gets you 6 cores.

In terms of next CPUs for the Intel Enthusiast line, which right now is X99 (Haswell-E), Broadwell-E should probably be launching Q2/Q3.

I have never had any good experience with Samsung. Everything I owned from them was a piece of shit and broke or acted up. Their customer service is beyond terrible too. I had one of their SSDs die on me this past summer due to one of their manufacture issues and it took them like 2 months to get me a replacement that worked. They didn't have the decency to give me a new replacement, some refurbished shit that still broke within the first week of use. Same thing happened to a monitor I had before switching to ASUS and a few other products I owned from them.

Fucking terrible brand. I never want to deal with them ever again.

By KingGondoGo To PostProbably gonna need to upgrade my Mac soon. I have a mid-2010 MacBook Pro and it's really been dragging lately.

Probably gonna go for a MacBook Air but I need to be patient and wait for the surely upcoming update to hit. Probably my biggest complaint about Apple is how they seemingly intentionally hamstring older devices with OS updates.

My early 2011 MacBook Pro has been going on great. I feel like it will last me a couple more years down since it does everything i need it to do without any issues these past 5 years.

Are you on SSD or RAM upgrade?

I have SSD and I have 6GB ram on my MacBook Pro for a few years now and boot up has been 10 seconds, everything feels great.

By SmokeyGo To PostIf you do any kind of multimedia work, you should looking into the X99 platform (i.e. 5820k). It's not much more than a 6700k setup (in some cases may even be cheaper) and the 5820k gets you 6 cores.

In terms of next CPUs for the Intel Enthusiast line, which right now is X99 (Haswell-E), Broadwell-E should probably be launching Q2/Q3.

I struggled to find many good motherboards still around for the 5820K and that line. But that could just be an Australia thing.

By KingGondoGo To PostI've considered upgrading my current MBP but that will still cost a few hundred bucks. If I were sure that would fix the issues I'd definitely go that route.

I like the screen size and form factor. It's just jarring how slowly it runs doing basic things nowadays.

Depending on how you budget yourself, you can upgrade for fairly cheap.

If you want you can try checking out the next line of MacBook Pros when they release. Go pay for it through installments if necessary.the new 13in macbook pro is a lot lighter and it makes my 2011 model feel heavy.

Depends on what you need and how quick you need it. I think the biggest thing is just a cheap SSD that would make your life smoother even with just 4gb ram.

By SmokeyGo To PostIf you do any kind of multimedia work, you should looking into the X99 platform (i.e. 5820k). It's not much more than a 6700k setup (in some cases may even be cheaper) and the 5820k gets you 6 cores.

In terms of next CPUs for the Intel Enthusiast line, which right now is X99 (Haswell-E), Broadwell-E should probably be launching Q2/Q3.

Ok, I've been thinking on it, can you explain how more cores, which is basically what the extremes give you, are valuable for multi media processing?

Surely a higher mhz rate is?

Most of the time you want more cores for multiple tasks at the same time, not, all encompassing massive tasks that can't be split up?

i.e. video processing would be mhz related, immediately in my mind.

Unless they've finally optimised all of the app's to split the load for files / projects of a certain load?

By giririsssGo To PostOk, I've been thinking on it, can you explain how more cores, which is basically what the extremes give you, are valuable for multi media processing?

Surely a higher mhz rate is?

Most of the time you want more cores for multiple tasks at the same time, not, all encompassing massive tasks that can't be split up?

i.e. video processing would be mhz related, immediately in my mind.

Unless they've finally optimised all of the app's to split the load for files / projects of a certain load?

For stuff like video processing, photo work, streaming the more cores the better. From benches I've seen, video processing loves more cores. All of these chips can OC into the 4.3ghz+ range so you get the best of both worlds in speed and more cores to usr, however for gaming the 6 cores are a bit behind the 6700k but not by much.

Also the Enthusiast line does not equal Extreme. The enthusiast line is usually geared more towards workstation type work. The Haswell-E (X99 platform) lineup is 5820k, 5930k, and 5960x. The x model is the extreme CPU and is usually differentiated by more L2 cache or cores. In this case the 5960x is a 8 core proc. The other two are 6 core. The extreme CPU is always $1,000+. For the upcoming Broadwell-E line, the extreme CPU is rumored to be a 10 core proc.

Anything that can spawn multiple threads is helped by cores. Video work can be iffy because the most intensive work should be done through the OpenCL API or Nvidia'd CUDA, so the GPU is what matters there. Some "workstation" applications like CAD won't be helped by more cores either, Inventor or anything from Autodesk that relies on the AutoCAD engine is single-threaded (with certain extensions that can run on other threads) so clock rate is really what you want there. There are some other things like CIFS that are still single-threaded too, or any storage protocol that uses SMB.

Another reason besides cores to go X99 is you get more PCI-E lanes, most won't need them but its nice to have.